| Date | Lecture |
|---|---|
| Wednesday, March 9, 2005 | “The Pentagon’s New Map” |
| Thursday, March 10, 2005 | “A Future Worth Creating” |
Thomas P.M. Barnett is a strategic planner who has worked in national security affairs since the end of the Cold War and has operated his own consulting practice (Barnett Consulting) since 1998. A New York Times-bestselling author and a nationally-known public speaker who’s been profiled on the front-page of the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Barnett is in high demand within government circles as a forecaster of global conflict and an expert of military transformation, as well as within corporate circles as a management consultant and conference presenter on issues relating to international security and economic globalization. An award-winning teacher, Prof. Barnett has written for Esquire and the Washington Post, and has been interviewed in Rolling Stone. Having appeared on numerous national TV shows since 9/11, Tom Barnett has been described by U.S. News & World Report’s Michael Barone as “one of the most important strategic thinkers of our time.”
Dr. Barnett is best known as the author of The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004). Described by the Council on Foreign Relations as “a tour de force,” the wide-ranging volume has generated an enormous amount of reaction from around the world, leading to foreign rights already being sold in Japan, Turkey and China, as well as profiles in London’s Daily Telegraph, Paris’ L’Express (forthcoming), and Tokyo’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun (forthcoming). Mr. Barnett’s book was likewise the subject of a Book Notes show on C-SPAN (with Brian Lamb) and an On Point show on National Public Radio.
In addition to his teaching and consulting, Tom Barnett is a prolific blogger on current global events at his website www.thomaspmbarnett.com, where he counts among his regular readers representatives from all the major U.S. military commands, virtually all U.S. federal departments, numerous foreign governments, and major research and corporate entities the world over.
Prof. Barnett is a Senior Strategic Researcher and Professor in the Warfare Analysis & Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College, Newport RI, where he teaches and works–in a senior advisory role–with military and civilian leaders in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, Central Command, Special Operations Command, and Joint Forces Command. From November 2001 to June of 2003, Dr. Barnett was on temporary assignment as the Assistant for Strategic Futures, Office of Force Transformation (OFT), Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked with OFT Director Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski (USN, ret.) on a cluster of strategic concepts that link change in the international security environment to the imperative of transforming U.S. military capabilities to meet future threats.
Dr. Barnett has published a number of articles explaining these strategic concepts, which he presents comprehensively in a briefing entitled, “A Future Worth Creating: Defense Transformation in the New Security Environment.” As of July 2004, Prof. Barnett has delivered this brief over 200 times to a cumulative wordwide audience of approximately 10,000 government officials, military officers, industry and think tank representatives, and opinion leaders. In addition to his bestselling book, the most complete descriptions of the brief yet to appear in print are titled, “Mr. President, Here’s How to Make Sense of our Iraq Strategy,” (Esquire, June 2004), “Global Transaction Strategy,” with Dr Henry H. Gaffney, Jr (Military Officer, May 2003), and “The Pentagon’s New Map” (Esquire, March 2003).
At the Naval War College, Dr. Barnett has served as Director of the NewRuleSets.Project, an ambitious effort to draw new “maps” of power and influence in the world economy so as to expand the U.S. Military’s–and specifically, the U.S. Navy’s–vision of where and how it can wield maximum influence across the international security environment of the Era of Globalization. The first phase of the project (January 2000-October 2001) was conducted in partnership with the Wall Street broker-dealer firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which hosted three full-day “decision event” workshops atop World Trade Center 1 (Windows on the World). These workshops brought together elite leaders from the worlds of finance, national security, think tanks and industry to discuss the crucial “flows” of globalization, with a special emphasis on Developing Asia. Phase I yielded three briefings and two published reports: one on Asian Energy Futures and another on Foreign Direct Investment. The second phase of the project (November 2001-June 2003) consisted of Dr. Barnett’s follow-on work with the Office of Force Transformation. Prior to this study, Dr. Barnett directed the Year 2000 International Security Dimension Project.
As the sole proprietor of Barnett Consulting, Thomas Barnett also provides policy/management consulting as an independent contractor to various private corporations, non-profits and research organizations. Dr. Barnett is also a frequent speaker at major conferences and annual meetings of multinational corporations. Among his various clients have been American Systems Corporation, The Arlington Institute, Banking Industry Technology Secretariat (BITS)/The Bankers Roundtable, Battelle (Memorial Institute), Boeing Company, University of Virginia, Center for Strategic Studies, The CNA Corporation, Danvers (MA) Savings Bank, Electronic Funds Transfer Association, Greater Fall River (MA) Development Corporation, Institute for Public Research, Key Energy Services, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Massachusetts Bankers Association, Quarterdeck Investment Partners LLC, Qwest Communications, Unified Industries Inc., and United Way of Rhode Island.
Thomas Barnett has written for Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Providence Journal, and, in addition to The Pentagon’s New Map, previously published a book with Praeger entitled Romanian and East German Policies in the Third World: Comparing the Strategies of Ceausescu and Honecker (1992). Dr. Barnett has been interviewed and/or profiled by the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Associated Press and a number of foreign publications. On television, he has appeared on:
- CNN (Wolf Blitzer, Lou Dobbs)
- CNN Headline News
- CNNfn (Dolans Unscripted)
- CNN International
- CNBC (Dennis Miller Show)
- Fox News (Tony Snow, Neil Cavuto, John Gibson)
- C-SPAN (Book Notes)
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
- Voice of America
- Public Radio International (The World)
- National Public Radio (All Things Considered,The Connection, Marketplace, On Point, Diane Rehm Show, Glenn Mitchell Show)
- XM Radio (Dean’s Classroom)
- And dozens of local TV and radio talk shows around the country.
In December 2002, Dr. Barnett was selected by the editorial staff of Esquire as the “The Strategist” for their special edition entitled, “The Best and Brightest,” which introduced a few dozen people “who are changing our world.”
Dr. Barnett has published numerous times in Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. Over the past five years he has penned the following articles:
- The American Way of War (with Arthur K. Cebrowski, Jan 03)
- The Top 100 Rules of the New American Way of War (with Henry Gaffney, web exclusive Jan 03)
- Asia: The Military-Market Link (Jan 02)
- Globalization Gets a Bodyguard (with Gaffney, Nov 01)
- Globalization is Tested (Oct 01)
- India’s 12 Steps to a World Class Navy (Jul 01)
- Top Ten Post-Cold War Myths (with Gaffney, Feb 01)
- Force Structure Will Change (with Gaffney, Oct 00)
- Life After DODth or: How the Evernet Changes Everything (May 00),
- The Seven Deadly Sins of Network Centric Warfare (Jan 99)
On 3 April 2002, Prof. Barnett was cited as the U.S. Naval Institute’s 2001 Proceedings Author of the Year for “his multiple contributions to Proceedings–ranging from network-centric warfare, analysis of post-Cold War changes, to the effects of the war on terrorism on the services–helped define the Naval Institute’s open forum in 2001.”
In 2001 Prof. Barnett was also invited to participate in the Indian Navy’s first-ever International Fleet Review in Mumbai, India (15-19 February 2001), where he delivered a presentation (Alternative Global Futures and Asian Security) at an international symposium on naval power in the 21st century.
Prior to joining the College in August 1998, Dr. Barnett served as a Project Director in both the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Public Research, the two major divisions of The CNA Corporation (CNAC), a private research firm located in Alexandria, VA. His two major accomplishments during his CNAC career were:
Serving as a member of the Naval Force Capabilities Planning Effort that developed the new strategic concepts eventually published in the Navy’s White Paper . . . From The Sea, the first draft of which he co-authored along with a handful of senior naval officers
Pioneering and managing CNAC’s contractual relationship with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
During his eight years at CNAC, Dr. Barnett directed projects or worked as an analyst in a variety of subject areas (in order):
- Media coverage of Desert Shield
- Naval arms control
- U.S. defense spending projections
- DoD-Congressional relations
- Military-to-military ties
- Force structure planning and long-term procurement strategies
- U.S. national security strategy; naval strategy
- Local defense conversion
- Youth programs
- U.S.-Russian relations
- Strategic corporate vision
- Corporate marketing
- Alternative global, regional, and country future scenarios
- USAID management issues
- Business-process reengineering in U.S. Government agencies
- Evaluation of military exercise design
- Global trends and change
- Information warfare
- Intelligence collection and analysis
- Counter-narcotics
- Information architectures
- Internet web site design
- Non-lethal weapons
- Future technology trends in navigation, telecommunications, and computing
- Counter-terrorism
- Network-centric warfare.
While at CNAC, he published several dozen reports, essays, and annotated briefings on a wide variety of subjects. In the mid-1990s, Prof. Barnett has penned a book-length manuscript entitled, The Emily Updates: A Year in the Life of a Three-Year-Old Battling Cancer (1998), for which he is currently seeking publication.
Professor Barnett has a BA (Honors) from the University of Wisconsin with a double-major in Russian Language and Literature and International Relations (emphasis—U.S. Foreign Policy). At Wisconsin, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa his junior year. Following Wisconsin, Dr. Barnett earned an AM in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and a PhD in Political Science (major—International Relations; minor—Comparative Politics) from Harvard University. His dissertation was entitled, Warsaw Pact-Third World Relations, 1968-1987: Explaining the Special Roles of Romania and East Germany. While at Harvard, he served as Research Assistant to the Director of the Russian Research Center, Professor Adam B.Ulam, and worked as a Teaching Fellow in the History and Government Departments.
Thomas Barnett is also the only Green Bay Packer season ticket-holder from the state of Rhode Island. As one of the stockholders of the franchise, he feels it is essential to check up on his investment on a regular basis. His seats are located in the historic “South End Zone” of Lambeau Field. Prof. Barnett’s maternal grandfather, Gerald Clifford (1889-1952), was a 1991 inductee of the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame.